Raising the dead

Auctions America, Fort Lauderdale, USA 1-3 April

WHEN PRESTON TUCKER’S dream of building a car of his own design died, it was not the fault of his product. The streamlined Tucker 48 was an exciting machine, even a'er initial attempts at production had forced certain concessions to practicality to be made. Full of unusual safety features including its directional ‘Cyclops’ headlamp, and powered by a rear-mounted helicopter engine making 372lb ' of torque, it was quite something.

Not a compelling enough proposition, however, to survive a perfect storm of PR disasters and government investigations into Tucker’s business practices: by 1950 Tucker Corp had been declared bankrupt and forced to sell off its assets. Among those were chassis 1052 and the other parts that would eventually be assembled into the car pictured below, the ‘52nd of 51’ Tuckers built. The thousands of components had been passed around various owners over the years, but none had been brave enough to do the necessary until John Schuler came along. With the help of Tucker expert Martyn Donaldson and restorer Brian Joseph, a 48 made of mostly original parts was completed in 2014 for the first time in decades.

The finished article is as spectacular as the process of putting it together was daunting, and in man-hours alone the car must be worth its estimate of $950,0001,250,000. Consider that there are insufficient Tucker parts le' in the wild to assemble another like it, and it starts to look downright irresistible.